Monday, October 29, 2007

With another frustrating loss and another abysmal performance by the quarterback position, the QB position has officially entered the code red territory. You God DAMN right I ordered Code RED! Even the Vice President of player personnel had a few interesting quotes about the current quarterback situation leading up to the 20-16 heartbreaking loss to the Eagles. More on the comments later.The owners of the franchise, the Wilf family, paid a lot of money to acquire Brad Childress to be their head coach two seasons ago. Childress has received his share of criticism over the last couple years here in Minnesota and rightfully so. I’ve actually been a Childress supporter blaming the constant losing on talent. I still think this team is multiple players away from being a playoff contender. 4-5 good players away folks. The one move that I do “let my mouth fly” on is the decision to start Tarvaris Jackson this year. T-Jack as the cool kids say, was a DI-AA prospect that Childress grabbed in the 2nd round two years ago. I was fine with the draft pick, but to start the kid in year two was a bold move that is biting him in the rear end right now. There is a better word to use, but I can’t, so fill in the blank. I can say it on this site though! It's biting him in the...ASS!

T-Jack has looked so over his head that sometimes you actually feel bad for a 24-year-old millionaire who is playing sports for his occupation. You should never feel this way about an athlete. Never. This is how bad he’s been. Currently, he’s the 32nd best starter in the NFL. Side note to the non-NFL fans and to the idiots: There are only 32 teams in the league. Bluntly, he’s the worst quarterback in the league. Since T-Jack has been nicked up for a few starts, we’ve had to replace him with Kelly Holcomb and Brooks Bollinger. As you can see this isn’t Lance Harbor going down in Varsity Blues with Johnny Moxon and emergency QB Tweeter waiting in the wings, this is two very average players. So, if T-Jack is the starter and is sitting at a cool 32 out of 32, what does that say about the clowns behind him in Holcomb and Bollinger? Exactly. Let’s just say it’s been a “fun” year for the Viking fans this year. Good times all around.

After seven games of horrendous play at the #1 position, the coaches & front office have stuck by their decision to head into this season with these three amigos: Jackson, Holcomb & Bollinger. Sounds more like a Law firm then players at the premier football position. However, about four days ago, the VP of player personnel Rick Spielman made some rather interesting comments in a local paper. It was from Sid Hartman’s column. If you don’t know Sid, he’s a piece of work. Sid is the biggest homer in the world (no joke) that has simply lost his mind. He’s like 81 years old and is still working. I shy away from using information from his columns for this reason, but he has actual quotes from Rick. Sid gets a free pass on this one. Here is what Rick said in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

"Right now we're in the process of evaluating the whole draft at every position, and this year there are some good quarterbacks coming out and we're just in the process of trying to get those guys lined up," Spielman said.

"The kid at Boston College, Matt Ryan, the [André] Woodson kid at Kentucky, [John David] Booty's been hurt out at USC, [Chad] Henne at Michigan, there's [Brian] Brohm at Louisville, Colt Brennan at Hawaii," Spielman said. "So, there's a lot of guys right now, just like we are at all the positions, just starting at the evaluation process of looking at them all.

"I've seen four of those guys so far. I was at the Louisville-UConn game, I was at the South Carolina- Kentucky game and the Virginia Tech and Boston College game."

Have they thrown in the T-Jack towel after only seven total starts? These comments floor me. Not because it’s not the right move, but because they finally realized what every other dimwit fan realized four weeks ago. Jackson stinks. Holcomb stinks. And yes, even you Brooks stink too. I’ve even joked in a kind of serious way if we have to start a QB on O and just snap it right to AP. Even if the beers were flowing, no one looked at me like I was crazy. I even got a few approval nods and “not a bad idea Fuzz” comments.

So, what to do now? Our main talent evaluator is sitting at big time college games on Saturdays scouting big time college quarterbacks when apparently T-Jack is their guy. What? Here’s my opinion: They know they messed up and they know the messed up in the worst way. They didn’t even have a back-up plan if T-Jack happened to play poorly. This could and should be criticized even more. If you’re going to give the inexperienced kid a chance at least have a semi-proven back up behind him. Holcomb is in his 12th year and was available in the one week before the season. He’s not a plan. Jeff Garcia, David Carr or Jake Plummer are solid back-up plans. The word on the street is that Childress was behind putting all the chips in for T-Jack. If so, this could be grounds for firing on this decision alone.

He’s not going to get fired though. The Wilf family has supported this guy like he has nude photos of them with the saucy intern. So, together they need to figure this out. If I were them, I would play Jackson out the rest of the year. A lot of people are saying that Holcomb and even Bollinger give them a better chance to win right now. I don’t care; none of them are going to lead us to the playoffs. It’s not happening. You need to see what you have in Jackson…however…I think you still draft a QB with your first pick in next years draft. As crazy as that sounds, it’s not crazy. Having a good quarterback is essential in winning football teams. Having two potential QB’s on your team is not a bad problem. What if they both pan out you ask? That’s the best-case scenario! Then you have what the Chargers had with Brees & Rivers a few years back. You trade one and roll with the guy your more comfortable with. Just for the record, I don’t see T-Jack ever panning out. Play him though, just in case I’m wrong.

So Viking faithful, start watching some college games because you’re next quarterback for the next 15 years could be one of those guys Rick mentioned. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this…

Jeff George called in to Paul Allen today, a bigger sports personality in the area and requested for Paul to campaign for his return to the Vikings. He wants a meeting with the Vikings. I’m not even kidding. What do you think?